


I

by Crowgirl



Series: Welcoming Silences [1]
Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Canon Era, Canon Related, M/M, Rare Pairings, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Slow To Update, Work In Progress, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:46:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4445834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what he used to do reduced down to essentials.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I

For about ten minutes after Foyle walks out of the ward, Paul stares at the ceiling. He isn’t going to pick up those files. If he does, it will be to ask the ward sister to send them back to the police station or to move them so he can get at that damned Zane Grey he feels as though he's been reading forever.

After all, it isn’t as if Foyle won’t be able to take care of this on his own. It’s perfectly straightforward, he’s sure, and even if it isn’t, Foyle is more than capable of handling a few twists. A disabled ex-soldier certainly wouldn’t be of much use. He probably _would_ be of more use weaving baskets.

‘Your friend left already?’ A nurse trots up, her shoes tapping sharply on the floor, and unhooks his chart from the end of the bed.

‘He had an appointment.’

‘Too bad; you could do with some more company, Mr. Milner.’ She hooks the chart back on the wrought-iron bedstead and looks at him. 

‘I like being on my own.’

‘But it isn’t good for you--’ She leans a little forward and waves a finger at him. He wonders if this is something they teach in nursing school: How To Lecture The Obstreperous Patient. ‘--You need a positive environment to heal, Mr. Milner.’

‘So if I’m happy enough, my leg will grow back?’ He wishes it unsaid immediately. But she takes it as a black joke and leans back on her heels.

‘Well, let me put it this way, Mr. Milner. The wound needs to heal before you can have the prosthesis properly fitted and start to work with it. Would you rather be here another two weeks or another two months?’

He smiles; he knows he’s stuck here for at least another three weeks no matter what. ‘With you, sister, I’ll stay forever.’

She huffs and turns away, but not without a smile.

He lies back on his pillow with a stifled sigh and rolls his head to one side. 

The files are still there.

He’d say that he doesn’t know why Foyle left them but he does -- the man isn’t exactly transparent but they’d worked together long enough before the war that he can make a fairly good guess as to what’s going on behind that careful blankness. He can almost hear the internal dialogue: _injured in the war -- not doing well in recovery -- needs something to take him out of himself._ He snorts aloud. It’s nonsense. Sentimental nonsense.

He straightens himself out in the bed, returns his gaze to the old water stain on the ceiling above him, and listens to the low voices from the other beds. Someone laughs -- Ernie, it sounds like, a young Londoner who will be off back to the front any day now; he can hear the steady click of dominoes and, once, the double-tap of knuckles on a tray. That’s Nurse Weems and Private Donahue and he hopes they’re better at being married than either of them are at playing dominoes. They’re so busy making eyes at each other that neither of them can remember the rules. 

But that might be bitterness talking -- he can’t remember the last time his wife made eyes at him. She comes to visit, of course she does, and sits by the side of his bed, hands clasped over her purse in her lap, knees together, feet together, head down, eyes fixed on the backs of her neatly gloved hands. He’d tried to embrace her exactly once, reaching awkwardly from the bed, lifting himself on one elbow. The look on her face hadn’t exactly been horror and it hadn’t exactly been disgust but it hadn’t been encouragement and she hadn’t reached back.

His leg aches -- no, scratch that, his body aches, top to toe, side to side. His left leg is the worst, though: it aches, it burns, it itches, it cramps -- he’s lost track of the number of times he’s woken up in the night reaching to scratch the bottom of a foot that is no longer his. 

He rocks his head to one side again and glares at the files. What the hell had Foyle been thinking leaving those there? They’re police property, they shouldn’t be out of his office let alone the station. He puts his hands under his hips and shoves until he’s half sitting against the pillows. He spreads the files out on the blanket over his knees, stares at the plain brown paper covers. 

This is what he used to do reduced down to essentials. He’d liked doing it -- he’d enjoyed doing it. It’s been so long since he enjoyed doing anything that it seems a little strange to think about now. He hadn’t been a very good soldier. He’d done it because he had to, because he did believe that he was fighting for the right side, but generalizations didn’t help a lot when the man he’d played cards with the hour before toppled back into his arms as a headless corpse or the rats nibbled their way into his pack and ate his last pair of clean socks --- or there was that moment he can’t quite remember that really didn’t seem to end until he woke up in the ambulance, a mudstained nurse cinching a tourniquet around his knee.

He taps his fingers on the file, rubs his thumb over the stupidly familiar rough texture.

The sister walks by again and nods at him. ‘Occupational therapy is good for the soul.’

Milner smirks down at the files. He’s not sure if she would approve quite so much if she knew the occupational therapy involved unsolved murder but-- 

He smoothes his hand over the files one last time. Foyle wouldn’t have brought them here if he wasn’t, at the very least, interested in what Milner had to say. Even if it was simply charity -- it wasn’t as if he was in a position to turn it down.

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand thanks to [Kivrin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivrin) who very kindly pointed out that Milner's first book is, in fact, _Tappan's Burro_ by Zane Grey.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Gathering Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11925165) by [ElectraRhodes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectraRhodes/pseuds/ElectraRhodes)




End file.
